Athletes Doing Crossfit: One Situation

There have been numerous articles over the internet that have ripped into Crossfit regarding their training methodologies, program design, and love for super high volumes and poor form. I am not going to “go” there but there are situations that can frustrate a coach who is trying decrease the chance of injury and continually increase the athelete’s readiness to play their sport. One reason why I have not been an advocate of Crossfit for athletes is because you cannot take a generalized approach for a sport that requires specific energy system adapatations (via through strength, power, core stability, conditioning). There are also specific structural/functional issues that certain athletes are more predisposed to because of the demands of the sport such as FAI (hips) or shoulder laxity in baseball (overhead athletes). These adaptations guide our programming for such athletes. We want minimal risk and maximal reward with program design. We have worked with athletes in the past where they have split time between us and Crossfit gyms.

Only 10x worse

I know all of these gyms are not created equal and their camaraderie is tremendous but when athletes come to you the next day unable to hold something in their hands because they ripped them up badly from endless rope climbing and kipping pull ups, are we violating the #1 rule of the strength coach (do no harm)? The situation is only one that we have had throughout the offseason and had to adapt the program to bodyweight circuits because of the facility continually allows this to happen.

It is something to think about when we take an extreme approach to athletes.